Shahrukh Khan gets Brad Pitt’s cheeks in ‘Fan’

Shahrukh’s film ‘Fan’ has him playing the actor and star Aryan Khanna and his biggest fan Gaurav, who is younger, thinner, with similar, yet not so similar features. How did this makeover happen? “Using VFX completely or making use of prosthetics totally would not have made Shahrukh look so much younger. The main challenge was that we could not find any previous instance when an actor was made to look younger. When we contacted senior makeup artists, they all said it was impossible to achieve the look. We only know of actors who were made to look older using prosthetics,” shared Keitan Yadav and Haresh Hingorani from the Red Chillies VFX team.
As the younger Gaurav, Shahrukh needed to have smoother skin with some fat underneath the skin, he had to look like himself, yet distorted version of himself and to achieve this effect the team approached Greg Cannom, Brad Pitt’s makeup artist. “I tried many looks, but nothing was working. Shahrukh’s cheek bone is unique, and it had to be filled in to look different. Then I looked around at all the moulds I made for different actors, and finally decided it was going to be Brad Pitt. So what you see on Gaurav is Brad Pitt’s cheeks,” shared Greg, who says the Fan star is his second most favourite actor.“He was extremely patient and helpful during the process that required him to sit for over four hours every day to get the prosthetic right. It was even more complicated in the beginning when we were trying to get the mould done. I used these special tapes to pull his skin. And he gave his inputs to make it better. It was challenging to retain the dimple,” he added.
“If it is my fan he has to have the dimple. So Gaurav has a little subdues version of it,” shared Shahrukh, who worked very hard to get the look done right so that it stayed on him while he did all the action. “It took a lot of control not to be angry and sit through the entire process. I do not look forward to it even though the results are great,” he shared.
Prosthetics made Shahrukh’s skin look smoother and face fuller; a few makeup tricks were used to make his eyebrow look different and pumpers were used to push the teeth out. What prosthetics and makeup could not do, VFX chipped in. Computer graphics were used to blend the prosthetic with skin, to make the nose thinner, reduce the space between the nose and the lips, change the shape of the lips, remove the adam’s apple, straighten the shoulders and narrow them down, pull in the chest etc – the entire process was aimed at making a 50-year-old look like a 20-year-old guy.
The Redchillies team along with Greg did get their act right and the result is for all to see, as the Fan and the star are rocking at boxoffice.